Thirty years ago, the conductor Simon Rattle played a part in Thomas Adès’s emergence as one of contemporary music’s greatest stars. This time, a work by the composer that Rattle admires is surrounded by the music of Antonín Dvořák, Claude Debussy, and Karol Szymanowski. And for Szymanowski’s concerto, the orchestra will not be alone—Janine Jansen will play the solo violin part.
In 1997 at the age of 26, Thomas Adès composed Asyla on commission for Simon Rattle. Five years later, when the conductor selected the work for his inaugural concert with the Berlin Philharmonic, he propelled Adès to the forefront of contemporary composers. They maintain a lively and ongoing working relationship. In March 2024, for example, Rattle also led the premiere of Adès’s Aquifer in Munich.
Rattle introduced the composition as the newly-appointed chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. One thing he regards as remarkable is how even when the whole orchestra is playing, the music sounds transparent, and the colours of individual instruments rise to the surface with unusual clarity. The work’s title Aquifer refers to a geological structure like an underground cavern full of water.
Characterising his work, the composer tells us: “An aquifer is an underground conduit for water. Water finds aquifers, and it’s the closest metaphor I could find for what it is like to guide a musical impulse. It finds its ways of moving very fast and then suddenly there’s a moment, perhaps an obstacle, where it has to move more slowly, wait and look around for the next outlet.”
According to Adès, Simon Rattle truly understand composers. As pun on the conductor’s surname, Adès writes for a cog rattle or ratchet to be played during the last five bars of the piece. According to Maestro Rattle, that’s “very Tom, somehow”.
